THE UNMISSABLE TV PREVIEW
Can we say golden age? Dave Golder picks 10 essential viewing experiences for next year
us broadcaster TBC uk broadcaster BBC Two
Investigating a murder in one city is bad enough, but what if that murder takes place in two cities at the same time? Huh? That’s the premise of China Miéville’s sci-fi police procedural novel which takes place in the twin cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma – which actually exist in the same geographical location, though not in parallel worlds. Citizens in one city should not cross over into the other but this body does, and Inspector Tyador Borlú (David Morrissey) is sent to investigate. Tony Grisoni, the screenwriter behind Terry Gilliam’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Red Riding is behind this, so it should be deliciously odd.
us broadcaster Hulu uk broadcaster BBC one
Want a new buzz word for 2018? How about pre-apocalyptic? It could be on everybody’s lips if the new near-future series from Luther creator Neil Cross is a success. Jim Sturgess (One Day) and Agyness Deyn (Sunset Song) play two antagonistic London detectives, Robert Hicks and Elaine Renko. Reluctantly forced together, they have to carry on trying to keep law and order even after they discover proof that the world is going to imminently end. “Imagine the world you see when you look out your window… except it’s been given a death sentence,” says Cross. “What’s the point of justice in the face of Armageddon?”
us broadcaster Hulu uk broadcaster CHannel 4
The Handmaid’s Tale had its own blessed day when the Emmys decided to shower it with the kind of awards Netflix and Amazon had been coveting. So season two of the discussion-provoking, dystopian show about women really needing to stick it to the Man has a lot to live up to. Especially as it doesn’t have much left of the novel to rely on. The showrunners are teasing a bigger world, more about the resistance groups such as Mayday, Offred’s mum and a backstory for scary Aunt Lydia. Star Elisabeth Moss meanwhile promises it will be darker (really? How?) and that the first scene is nothing anyone can predict. Not a musical sequence, then?
us broadcaster HBo uk broadcaster Sky aTlanTiC
Not so much a drama series as a Rubik’s Cube,
Westworld’s season one finale pulled the curtain aside on the show’s “parallel-storylines-yearsapart” ruse. So what next? Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores, reckons season two is actually “twice as ambitious as the first season… I didn’t think the show could shock me and it continues to do so”. So expect more cryptic plotting, then. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy also teased that we might be seeing Medieval World and Roman World in the new season (as seen in the original 1973 film), as well as the Samurai World teased in the season one finale. “We had to save something for season two.